官宣 | “在别处”露丝国际艺术节将于2024年6月28日开幕

Official Announcement

我们非常荣幸地宣布“2024第一届露丝国际艺术节”将于2024年6月28日至7月28日在英国威尔士露丝镇向公众开放。本届露丝艺术节的主题为“在别处（Elsewhere）”，展览由露丝国际艺术基金会主办，渝儿担任总策划人，成蹊担任总策展人。6月28日开始并持续至7月4日，届时将有连续七天的“城市剧场”活动在露丝小镇进行。

The 1st Ruthin International Arts Festival 2024, titled "Elsewhere", will be open to the public from 28th June to 28th July 2024 in Ruthin, North Wales, UK; it will be organised by Ruthin Global Arts and Education Foundation, directed by Yu Er and curated by Cheng Xi. Starting on 28th June and running until the 4th of July, there will be seven days of "Site-responsive" events in the town of Ruthin. 

2024第一届露丝国际艺术节由“城市剧场”、“社群共生”、“开放现场”等三个主题单元组成，这三大展览板块分别强调了当代艺术创作的实验性、在地性和现场性。本届露丝国际艺术节汇聚了来自全球40多个国家和地区的艺术家、诗人、导演以及多元媒介的创作者共同参与，作品类型涵盖当代表演、装置、声音、电影、诗歌、戏剧、写作、社会参与式艺术等，其中有50多位创作者将亲自来到露丝镇的展览现场，参与到主题展表演、放映、朗诵、分享会、论坛、工作坊、以及社群互动等实践活动中。

The 1st Ruthin International Arts Festival 2024 consists of three thematic sections:  "Site-Responsive", "Community", and "Openness". These three parts emphasise the experimentation, site-specificity, and ''being there'' of contemporary art creation. For this year, the Ruthin International Arts Festival calls for artists, poets, directors, and creators from more than 40 countries and regions around the world to participate together, ranging from contemporary performances, installations, sounds, films, poems, theatre, writings, and social engagement art, etc. More than 50 artists will come to the town of Ruthin in person and participate in the thematic exhibition live performances, film screenings, readings, sharing sessions, forums, workshops, and community practices.

  Natasha Cantwell, The Ant Colony, 2023.

此次艺术节还设有多个开放板块的内容，当地居民可以和艺术家一起自主参与创作和展示，借助当地居民对日常生活的表达与思考，将地方性艺术创作带到更广泛的视野当中。在现实空间中创造真实的行动，实践一个更有机社会的形成，以构建艺术与社群生态的良性互动，是露丝艺术节作为一个自由、开放、平等、多元的国际艺术平台所期待作出的在地性尝试。

This year's festival sets up several open-ended sections where local residents can participate in creation and exhibitions with artists, bringing local arts to a broader horizon through local residents' expressions and reflections on their daily lives. Creating real actions in actual space, practising the formation of a more organic society, and building a virtuous interaction between art and community ecology are the on-site attempts RIAF looks forward to making as a freedom, openness, equality, and diversity global art platform.

Themes of RIAF

2024第一届露丝国际艺术节的主题为“在别处”（Elsewhere），这即是关于人对自身处境的反思与重构, 也是关于人对空间、时间、身体和心理上的多重处境的想象。“在别处”，作为一个副词性短语，其地理概念上带有一种先天的距离感。因此，“在别处”也常与远方、离散、他乡、记忆、想象、出走、流动、迁徙、隔阂、慰藉等词汇相关联，其隐晦的心理感性也常常寄托了异乡人心中共同拥有的对彼岸的想象。

The 1st Ruthin International Arts Festival 2024, titled "Elsewhere", discusses how human beings reflect and reconstruct their situation and reimagine their multiple conditions spatially, temporally, physically and psychologically. As an adverbial term, the geographical concept contained in "Elsewhere" has an innate sense of distance. Literarily, "Elsewhere" is often associated with words such as distant land, dissociation, another place, memory, imagination, departure, mobility, migration, cultural barriers, solace, etc.; its implicit psychological feelings often host the imaginations of the other side of the world shared by foreigners.

在别处，灵魂何处安放？这也许是今天很多人的内心写照。本届露丝国际艺术节致力于让生长于露丝镇的历史、文化、情感与日常生活和艺术家的个人生命经验共融共通，反映出后疫情时代下多重时空观念的断裂与接续。本次艺术节希望建构一个“第三空间”，重点关注这些来自世界各地的艺术家的即兴创作与现场实践，将他们不同的地方背景、多元的文化视角，多样的创作媒介和关注的不同面向带入一个新的场域中，记录持续发生的当下，重思当代艺术生态的现在与未来。

How do we care for our souls elsewhere? This might be the inner reflection of many people today. The festival is dedicated to constructing a "third place", focusing on the improvisation and on-site practice of these artists from all over the world, incorporating their personal backgrounds, diverse cultural perspectives, various creative mediums and different visions they concern. This year's festival will continuously document the ongoing moment and rethink contemporary art ecosystem's present and future.

露丝镇 (Ruthin)，是位于威尔士丹比格郡 (Denbighshire)的一个集市镇和社区。小镇的全部、城堡和圣彼得广场 (St Peter's Square ) 坐落在一座小山上，周边有普鲁格拉斯 (Pwllglas) 和雷尔 (Rhewl) 等村庄。该镇始建于1277年，露丝的名字取自威尔士语中的“rhudd”（红色）和“din”（堡垒），指的是1277 年至 1284 年间建成城堡所用的红色砂岩基岩。

Ruthin is a market town and community in Denbighshire, Wales. The town, with its castle and St Peter's Square, lies on a hill and is surrounded by the villages of Pwllglas and Rhewl. The town of Ruthin was founded in 1277, and the name 'Ruthin' is taken from the Welsh words 'rhudd' (red) and 'din' (fortress), referring to the colour of sandstone bedrock on which the castle was built between 1277 and 1284.

露丝镇的历史建筑相对保存完整，除因受到地区叛乱和内部战争而毁坏的建筑外，这些古迹和保护建筑使用至今，并成为了现在露丝镇居民生活的主要功能性场所。本次艺术节将利用这些城市空间中的历史性建筑，开启一场当代艺术与社群生态的动态试验。在这片未知的土地上，这个远离世俗尘嚣的古老小镇将要见证的策展人与艺术家的首次集体尝试，是一次“别处“对“此处”想象，也是“此处”对“别处”的回望。

Besides those destroyed by regional rebellions and the English Civil War, Ruthin's historic buildings are preserved relatively intact, and these preservation buildings are still in use today. Some have become the main functional places for the present-day inhabitants of Ruthin. Through artistic mediation and intervention, we aim to utilise these old buildings within the urban space to initiate a dynamic experiment on contemporary art and community ecosystem. On this unknown land, this ancient town far away from the world's hustle and bustle is going to witness the first collective attempt of curators and artists to imagine a lens of "elsewhere" to "here" and also a look back of "here" to "elsewhere".

Concepts of RIAF

作为本届艺术节的指导原则，露丝国际艺术节的大部分规划围绕着当代艺术实践中的在地性、实验性、媒介多元、社群共生、生态融合和持续生长等核心理念展开。

As the guiding principle for this year, much of our planning revolves around the core concepts of site-specificity, experimentation, medium diversity, community symbiosis, ecology integration, and sustainable growth in contemporary art practice.

展览组织者将以整个露丝小镇作为艺术事件发生的现场，以扎根地方为基点，根据露丝小镇的历史、文化、习俗、气候、建筑、社群等特质，用艺术的方式与当地社区产生联系，让艺术有机地介入到小镇的公共空间、公共事件和社区生活之中，激发城市活力和创造力。此外，参与本届露丝艺术节的艺术家团体和个人将通过其互动性艺术实践，尽可能多地打开公共空间的可能性，让原本栖息于静态展示空间中的艺术作品与周围环境动态互动，引导艺术行为融入日常生活，最终让艺术成为与露丝小镇的历史、人文和自然环境互动的渠道，创造有机的艺术生态和丰富的艺术叙事。

By taking the roots of specific sites and by creating with the history, culture, customs, climate, architecture, community and other characteristics of Ruthin, curators and artists will take the town of Ruthin as the scene where the art event happens and make a connection with the host community by means of art, so that art can organically intervene in the public space, public events, and community life of the town, stimulating the vitality and creativity of the urban space. In addition, the artist groups and individuals participating in this year's RIAF will open up as many possibilities of public space as possible through their interactive art practices so that the artworks which initially inhabited the static exhibition space can dynamically interact with the surrounding environment. The goal is to guide the integration of artistic actions into everyday life and ultimately allow art to become a channel of interaction with Ruthin's history, humanity, and natural environment, creating an organic artistic ecology and enriching artistic narratives.

此次露丝艺术节将以“城市剧场”的介入方式展开，注重现场感、身体性、及时性和有机的空间参与，强调对当代艺术媒介和意识形态的新观念、新形式、新思想的深入探索，希望重新溯回当代艺术在上世纪末诞生之初所具备的实验性和先锋精神。在本届露丝艺术节的学术研究框架下，策展人希望结合多学科的研究方法，探索当代艺术理论与社会学、政治学和关系美学的感性交叠与紧密联系，鼓励艺术家在现有学术研究的基础上，进一步探讨理论研究与创作实践的关系。

Ruthin International Arts Festival 2024 will be carried out in an intervention mode of "Site-Responsive", and the goal is to focus on the site, body, moment and organic spatial engagement and emphasise the in-depth exploration of advanced concepts, innovative forms, and updated thinking of contemporary artistic mediums and ideology. In the hope of re-tracing the initial experimental and avant-garde spirit of contemporary art born at the end of the last century, and within the framework of the academic research for RIAF, the curators are dedicated to combining multi-disciplinary research methods to explore the perceptual overlap and close connection between contemporary art theories and other  disciplines, such as sociology, politics, relational aesthetics and etc.. We encourage artists to further explore the relationship between theoretical research and expended practice based on existing academic research.

本届露丝艺术节在艺术形式和媒介的表达上追求多元贯通，参与此次艺术节的所有艺术家作品和实践包括但不限于实验表演、电影、诗歌、装置、声音、剧场、写作、社会参与式艺术等。在露丝艺术节的特别场域下，策展人希望打造出可持续的艺术生态环境，旨在为参与其中的艺术家创造出无限生长的自由场域，鼓励其突破媒介局限，探索当代艺术的媒介边界，以探寻艺术表达的更多可能性。

This year's RIAF pursues diversity and coherence in integrating art forms and mediums. All the works and practices of the artists participating in the festival include but are not limited to, experimental performances, film screenings, poems, installations, sound, theatre, writing, social-engaged art, and so on. Under the unique venue of the Ruthin International Arts Festival, the curators hope to create a sustainable art ecosystem, aiming to develop a boundless free field for the participants, encouraging them to break through the limitations of the medium, expanding the boundaries of the medium of contemporary art, and exploring more possibilities of artistic expression.

在地性的概念尺度绘制了多重生命经验在地方的生长轨迹。如何将“别处”的生命表现汇聚到一起，产生新的合作并引发新的转变，是我们回答关于构建新型艺术生态问题的起点。为了扎根社区与当地社群产生互动，本届露丝国际艺术节特别设置了 “家庭策展” 、“威尔士语写作”、“社区艺术工坊”、“露丝平行展”、“生态研究”、“公共教育”等参与式艺术项目作为展览的子单元，同时邀请当地居民参与艺术家的创作过程和现场实施，提供给观众一个在交流、互动、对话的开放空间中偶遇“此处”的机会，以促进艺术融入生活，加强“此处”与“别处”的深入链接，让艺术与社区微更新紧密相联。

The conceptual dimension of site-specificity maps the growing rhizome of multiple life experiences in the local context. The starting point for us to answer the question of constructing a new art ecosystem is how to bring together expressions of life from "elsewhere" to generate new collaborations and transformations. To create interaction with the local community, this year's Ruthin International Arts Festival has specially set up "Family Curating", "Welsh Language Writing", "Community Art Workshop", "Ruthin Parallel Exhibitions", "Ecological Research" and "Public Education" as sub-units of the festival. At the same time, local residents will be invited to participate in work-in-progress art programmes and on-site execution, providing the audience with the opportunity to meet "here" in an open space of communication, interaction and dialogue to promote the integration of art into the daily life, strengthening the profound link between "here" and "elsewhere", and closely linking the art with the community micro-renewal.

露丝艺术节将跨地域、跨文化的对话与想象呈现为一个艺术作品与当地自然和人文环境相融共生的场所。本届艺术节所提出的新范式同时也是一次自然生态和多元文化共生的情景实验。我们把世界多元文化的种子带到“此处”，种植在露丝的土壤中培育生长，将“此刻”与“别处”编织在一起，不仅参与到多元文化内部景观之间的对望，同时也参与到人类与自然之间的对话当中。人类文明的延续是人类顽强生命意志的体现，寻找由原始生命动力演化而来的不同生命路径，赋予一切生命以活力，是亨利·柏格森 (Henri Bergson) 对未来开放社会 (open society) 的想象。我们希望一切创作的动力之源都可以在这片土壤中找到使其扎根繁衍的生命之路，开辟社区微更新的发展新常态。

We will present cross-regional and trans-cultural dialogues and imagination at RIAF as a place where works of art coexist with their local environment, both natural and humanistic. The new paradigm proposed by the festival is also an experiment in the symbiosis of natural ecology and multi-culture. We will bring the seeds of multi-culture from all over the world to "here", plant them in Ruthin's ground and cultivate them. Weaving together "here and now" and "elsewhere" engages in a dialogue between multicultural and internal landscapes, and between human beings and nature as well. The continuation of human civilisation manifests human beings' strong will to live. Henri Bergson's vision of an open society is to find different paths of life evolving from the original life force and to give vitality to all beings. We hope that the driving force of all creations will find a way to take root and flourish on this ground and that a new normal of micro-renewal in the community will be developed.

露丝艺术节会是一个像植物一样持续生长的艺术节。我们希望通过艺术实践介入城市空间的举措，促进本地社群和文化生态的有机发展，激发不同国家和地区的多元文化交流，最终形成一个国际年度艺术节平台。我们将在展览期间，向公众开放即兴参与互动，以及举办驻地创作和工作坊等活动。我们将选择记录汇总这些实践项目，作为开放展览文献的一部分，最终与主展场的作品一起以档案文献的方式在下一届艺术节上集中呈现。此后，每届艺术节都将以“A现场展+B文献展”的双展方式进行。

RIAF will be an arts festival that keeps growing like a plant. We aim to promote the organic development of local communities and cultural ecology through initiatives of artistic practice intervening in urban spaces, stimulating multicultural exchanges between different regions and countries, and ultimately forming a platform for an international annual art festival. We will open the exhibition to the public for improvisation and interaction, as well as organise artist residency and workshops during the exhibition period. We plan to record and summarise these practices selectively as part of the archival exhibition and then consolidate them as archival documentation alongside the works in the main exhibition space in the next year. Each following edition of the festival will be organised as a double programme of 'A - Site + B - Documenta'. 

露丝国际艺术节将积极地通过艺术介入的方式与不同面向的群体建立联系，其目的是为了在这里画出一条新的研究路径。我们希望结合艺术家的个人生命经验，关注微小生命体自身的创造活力，最后将艺术创作的权利交还给社区居民，让一切新思想与社区共同生长。在这个过程中所创造出的可持续发展的艺术公地，将为构建一个有机的艺术生态系统提供一个持续质疑，反复追问，不断探索的新方案。

Ruthin International Arts Festival will actively connect with different orientated groups through artistic interventions to draw a new research path in this place. We hope to combine the artists' personal life experiences, focus on the creative vigour of the tiny living organisms themselves, and finally return the power of artistic creation to the community, enabling all new ideas to grow together with the community. The sustainable art commons created in this process will offer a new proposal for constructing an organic art ecosystem that is continuously questioned, repeatedly pursued and constantly explored.

Chief of Curators

Yu Er, the Festival Director for the 2024 Ruthin International Art Festival, is a distinguished poet and cross-media creator. Her artistic approach draws inspiration from dance and extends into visual arts and poetic expression, exploring artistic boundaries through interdisciplinary methods.

As an established poet, Yu Er has actively participated in the "Beijing Poetry Festival" for nine years, where she received the "Golden Sunflower Award" at its seventh iteration and was elected chairperson of the festival's council in 2021. Internationally recognized, her work has been featured at the Havana International Poetry Festival and translated into English and Spanish. Yu Er's poetry collections include "Late Spring Autumn Colors" and "Under the Light."

In 2024, she founded the Ruthin International Arts Festival in the UK, established the Y Arts Centre and launched the Y Talent Award, contributing significantly to the promotion of youth arts on a global scale.

Cheng Xi, the Lead Curator for the 2024 Ruthin International Art Festival, is a renowned curator, researcher, writer, and social theatre practitioner from China. Cheng's work spans curation, documentation, poetry, documentaries, performance, and social theatre. 

His primary research area is based on the dialogue between avant-garde consciousness in the historical field and contemporary cutting-edge practices based on social site observation. Cheng has consistently collaborated with interdisciplinary researchers, creators, and grassroots workers. His long-term research project was to excavate and organise folk memory, poetic communities, avant-garde art and personal histories of the 1960s and 1970s in China by means of oral history and documentation, placing them in the current and global contexts of observation and practice. His recent projects focus on youth cultural autonomy, community organisation, the art ecosystem,  and advanced practice under different cultural backgrounds, and he has also organised and participated in a wide range of "indescribable, ongoing and naturally-growing" practices. During the 2020 pandemic, he initiated a series of experimental projects such as "Eternal", "Theatre of the Crowed" and "Personal History", intending to break down geographical, cultural and media barriers by bringing together cutting-edge artists from different countries and regions to perform poetry, body, sound, video, theatre, social intervention and other experimental projects, as a way to explore more possibilities of art as "expression" today.

Cheng Xi has masterminded several notable projects including "Crossing the Bridge of Sorrow" (2015, Beijing), exhibitions on 1970s poetry, painting, and visual documentation (2016, Beijing),  and "The Avant-Garde Art Communities in China during the 1960s and 1970s - The Underground Current of Vanguard Poetry" (2016, Cheng Xi Contemporary Art Center, Beijing), and " The 70s - Tragic Passions with Poetry and Painting " (2016, Beijing), among others. The major experimental projects he has curated include: "Eternal: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2" (2020, Beijing), "Game Theatre｜Personal History: "Mulan's Story" - Grassroots Narratives of Migrant Women" (2022, Beijing), "Theatre of the Crowed: Sleeping Together or Not" (2023, Beijing), and "Beijing Poetry Festival｜Theatre of the Crowed : Much Happening by Chance" (2023, Beijing), etc.